Snow, a birthday, adventures, and MORE snow!

Happy Birthday Bella! Little Bella turned 3 this past week. She has been anxiously awaiting her B-day for several months now. We had promised her a party and she couldn't wait. Going to her friend's party the week-end before only fueled her excitement. I spent Friday in the kitchen preparing food... Candy lollipops for the gift bags, purple candied popcorn (specially requested by the B-day girl), a Dora cake - would that serve her friends, parents, and all the extended family?- better make some cupcakes too!

All day she kept coming and asking if it was time yet. "Tommorrow" I'd reply, all the while praying for her sake that the snowstorm sweeping through the country and headed straight for us, would magically miss us. No such luck! By Saturday morning there was about a foot of snow and several parts of the state were prohibiting people from driving. We didn't technically have driving restrictions but the snow was still falling and there were no signs that the plows would be able to hit residential areas anytime soon. (For the record the plow didn't come down our street until 3:30 and only because my mom needed to visit a quadrapelgic patient to help feed him so she called the city to plow the street so she could leave) Bella bounded out of bed thrilled that her friends would soon be on the way. Jared and I exchanged glances unsure of how we would break the news that her friends might not be coming. I half-heartedly finished the preparations feeling sorry for the little girl. Fortunately, the family and two of her friends were able to dig out and come ( A HUGE THANKYOU FOR EVEN ATTEMPTING IT AND MAKING HER DAY!!!).


Swiper stole the presents while we were making partyhats, but Map saved the day and told us were to go to find them. After crawling through a cave, and jungle, we arrived at the waterfall. We could see the presents but first had to use the fishing poles in Dora's packback to safely move the fish before we could go through the water to retrieve the presents. Even though our numbers were smaller than orginally planned, we had a blast. Although, we missed those who had drifts 4 feet up their garage doors and understandably couldn't make it.

Making party hats and Dora bracelets:

Walking like a crab:

The waterfall:

This week-end was also stake conference which was cancelled. On Sunday, instead of staying at home and keeping warm like most people, we helped Tonya load her U-Haul. I know, you're thinking who moves in the middle of a blizzard??? But thats the crazy Buchkovich family for you. Tonya had picked up the truck but was unable to load it Saturday. Hmmm, wonder why? Since Dustin was unable to catch his connecting flight into Cleveland until Tuesday, he flew back to Tennessee and drove up to get her, but she had to load the truck without him. Since he had to be back at work tomorrow we had to help her load even though it was Sunday.


Jared and Jacob drove to the house to help her load up. The girls and I thought it would be a fun adventure to walk through the snowy woods to Mima's. It was actually Katy's idea. IF she was a little older I'd be suspicious that she tried to kill me off for the insurance. Let's just say it was quite the work-out to pull Xandy and Bella on a sled through snow that was over knee deep is some places. Total snowfall was about 17 inches but that definately does NOT take into consideration the snow drifts. We made it though and had a fun adventure doing so.


Hope everyone else here had a warm, and relaxing week-end. You can be grateful you don't belong to the crazy Buchkovich gang.